Steamboat Springs & Eagle, Colorado

  Our Winter in April adventures continued in Steamboat Springs. Steamboat Springs is a little town of about 12000 nestled in the Rockies at an elevation of 6732 feet. Its a cute town with a Rocky Mountain Cowboy feel. The downtown buildings have kept the architecture of an old western movie. Very cool! We saw Dave's friend Elizabeth and drove around a little. It was snowing a lot though, so we took it easy.
   The next day we headed to Eagle where we stayed with Sandy and Pope, friends of Dave (and now my friends too ;-). They have a great place with a beautiful view of the mountains. Eagle is another little town with a Rocky Mountain Cowboy feel. Its elevation is 6,601 feet and is a little smaller with a population of 6 500.
  For most of our stay it snowed on and off but our last day there we got some sun. While we were there we also visited Vail and Beaver Creek: two ski resort towns. We also visited Dave's friend Chris who teaches skiing at Beaver Creek. It's really beautiful up there. I'd love to come back to ski or in the summer to go hiking... And of course to visit all the lovely people we met.
Enjoy the pics!!

This is a great taco place in Eagle. We had awesome tacos and horchata there. 

Vail ski resort.

Cool art in Vail.

Beautiful red stone. 

Cool Western style buildings.

The entrance to a ranch.

Snowy Colorado

We've been really lucky with weather. We've had days that were supposed to rain that ended up sunny...but we have met our match in Colorado. It's snowing, lots!! Oh, and did I mention we switched out our snow tires for all-seasons. We'll just have to drive slowly and avoid any highmountain passes during the snow. Lol. I thought we were escaping this weather! Oops!
On the other hand, Colorado is really beautiful. :-) Here are a few pics...I'll post more tomorrow.

Utah

  We left Salt Lake City this morning to start our journey towards Colorado. We drove up through the mountains which had us driving through snow at times. (Talk about a switch from Arizona!) We saw plains and beautiful mountains, lots of white trucks (middle America!) and are now enjoying being kinda nowhere with nothing to do.
I hope you enjoy the pics.

Salt Lake City

What do you think of when you hear Salt Lake City, Utah? I used to image a salty desert with Mormons and big churches. Seriously, I had no interest in visiting. It wasn't a hate thing like Vegas, it was simple indifference. What could possibly make me want to go there?
Ummm, the Rockies, maybe? World class skiing, maybe? The Sundance Film Festival? Thank goodness Dave has a cousin (Scott) who lives here. We actually came in 2011 for Scott and Becky's wedding and that's when I found out how beautiful it is here! Oh, and the salt? Not a desert (that's somewhere else) it's a beautiful lake in a valley between some very impressive mountains.
Salt Lake City does boast THE Mormon temple...a sort of Mecca for Mormons. It's very beautiful and the complex is huge and open to all visitors. I'll add a couple of pics, but I'll admit that I'm cheating a bit...they're from our last visit.
This visit we have just hung out with Scott, Becky and their two rotties, Dudley and Demi. It's been nice to see SLC a little more closely. It's a nice city with great vistas everywhere you turn.
Enjoy the pics!

SLC has an interesting mix of people: outdoorsy mountain bikers/skiers/runners and a huge Mormon population. They seem to have slightly tense relationship...but at least they have some humour!   

More humourous beer

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State Capital Building.

Mormon Temple

Delicious BBQ place

Dom enjoying breakfast on a patio.

A view of the city

City Hall

Another view of the city. 

Leaving Las Vegas...for Beaver, Utah

   So, I have a confession: I never wanted to go to Las Vegas. It was honestly on my "Places I Never Need To Go To" List. I was a hater. I imagined the worst and cheesiest that the US had to offer all wrapped up in one city.

  What I was imagining was Old Downtown Las Vegas. We drove through it on our way out. By then it was funny. I had to snap a few pics.
Our drive to Utah was incredible. We saw some amazing scenery. One section was so pretty we actually turned around and drove it again. Arizona and Utah are well, I feel repetitive...does anyone have a thesaurus? Stunning, breathtaking, beautiful, eye-popping...take your pick, add your own adjective whichever, Utah and Arizona are it. I hope the pictures do them justice.  ;-)

This is what I though Vegas would look like EVERYWHERE.

This is a better example of current resort style Vegas.

More old Vegas!

On our way!

Arizona...

We stopped for lunch in the middle of a National Park while still in Arizona.

Our little cowboy.